Right To Lord Over L.A. Times Worth $2 Billion To David Geffen
Today's LAT reports that DreamWorks mogul and flawed Gay Mafia knight David Geffen has made a $2 billion cash offer for the paper, a bid that's been languishing for a month while its parent Tribune Company waits to see if an individual or corporation richer than even Geffen will step up and buy the entire company:
Several private equity firms, newspaper giant Gannett Co. and an alliance of Los Angeles billionaires, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, have expressed preliminary interest in owning Tribune.
But none of those parties have come forward with a formal offer, forcing Tribune to extend an auction that was to end this month into the new year. [...]
Geffen has told many friends and associates for more than a year that he would like to own the Los Angeles newspaper and improve the paper as a service to Los Angeles.
The 63-year-old tycoon has also said that he has enough liquid assets to buy the paper alone and pay cash.
His net worth is estimated at $4.6 billion.
Should the Tribune Co. eventually find a better-funded suitor, Geffen will grudgingly return his $2 billion in cash to the velvet treasure chest he keeps buried under the sand behind his Malibu compound, slowly letting go of his plans to cover the front page of the Times in For Your Consideration ads for Dreamgirls and filling its op-ed section with diatribes against the antiquated laws that allow the unwashed masses to spoil his glorious view of the Pacific by exercising their right to splay their pasty bodies across his precious stretch of Carbon Beach.
